1. Field
This disclosure relates to the field of presenting a media item via a graphical user interface, and specifically to conserving bandwidth by switching media players based on changes to display modes associated with the media players.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many owners of digital devices use them to stream video files. A user may move a media player into the background such that a picture component of a video file is not displayed to the user while it is streaming the video file. In such cases, the media player continues to stream video—even though only the audio component of the video file is actually being presented to the user. This is not an efficient use of bandwidth as the picture component of the video file constitutes a much larger share than the audio component of the video file, and the media player in the background is not presenting the picture component of the streaming video to the user. Moreover, in some cases, the media player in the background continues to stream video without regard for the display size of the video. That is, even if a user resizes the media player to smaller resolution (e.g., 144p) before placing the media player in the background, the media player will still stream at a higher resolution (e.g., 1080p) if the device and connection supports it. In general streaming video from a media player in the background wastes bandwidth, resources of the digital device (uses more memory and power than audio only), and resources of the media provider streaming the video file to the digital device.